SOUNDS OF AMERICA

Tension, imagery and colour: the late Hans Vonk conducts the St Louis Symphony Orchestra in music by Claude Baker (see page I)

and against the winds, which are prominent characters in a three-act drama (and threepart second movement.) Ibert’s piece sounds like so many of this composer’s scores, full of jaunty spirit and idyllic lyricism, with the cello as romantic figure conversing with chatty colleagues.

The masterpiece here, of course, is the Berg, which sounds as impassioned, conflicted and intricately layered as ever. Nothing appears to cause anxiety for the Baton Rouge musicians, who dispatch the score’s rhythmic and expressive challenges with handsome aplomb. Violinist John Gilbert and pianist Dmitri Shteinberg are vibrant soloists and the winds perform with cohesive and precise assurance under conductor Timothy Muffitt.

Gilbert is the able soloist in the Weill and cellist George Work brings suave definition to the Ibert. Yet what seizes attention more than the solo lines are the wind parts, a testament to the colouristic skills of the composers and the players’ first-rate artistry. Donald Rosenberg

Colina Baba Yaga a . The Unbearable Lightness of Being b . Quinta del Sordo b . Flute Concerto, ‘Isles of Shoals’ c c Lukasz Dlugosz l a Anastasia Khitruk vn London Symphony Orchestra / ab Ira Levin, c Ransom Wilson Fleur de Son F FDS58018 (69’ • DDD)

Orchestral works by Cubainspired New York composer As is often the case with protean creative types, it is impossible to categorise New York-based, multiple Grammy-winning composer Michael Colina. Whatever the stylistic tendency or input of a given piece, his music is relentlessly, persuasively romantic and his command and facility with jazz, classical and pop materials allow him to perform tours de force such as incorporating Bach’s Sheep may safely graze into the middle of a very ambitious and multidimensional flute concerto called Isles of Shoals.

Inspired by the sudden disappearance in 1912 of America’s first artist colony, off the coast of New Hampshire, the 30-minute concerto haunts and inhabits a faded, fragile past during which musical visitors included MacDowell, Paderewski and Gabrilowitsch. The orchestral writing is sumptuous yet clear throughout, which allows Lukasz Dlugosz to weave a remarkable narrative.

Colina is equally at his best in an atmospheric, light-and-shade take on The Unbearable Lightness of Being and an 11-minute symphonic poem called Quinta del Sordo, inspired by the house in which the deaf Goya created his terrible last paintings. The disc leads off with Baba Yaga, 20 minutes of hyper-Rimsky-Korsakov for which Anastasia Khitruk’s ravishing violin-playing makes a very strong case.

Overall, at every crucial point Colina finds an authentic emotional response by always being willing to let a tune relinquish a comfortable backing harmony to forge on alone into uncertain harmonic waters. Recorded in Abbey Road Studios, the quiet moments have a hushed intensity while the big climaxes are superb, thanks to audiophile work by engineers Simon Rhodes and the legendary Tony Faulkner. Laurence Vittes

Fairouz Sumeida’s Song Jo Ellen Miller sop..................................................Mabrouka Rachel Calloway mez ...................................................Asakir Robert Mack ten........................................................Sumeida Mischa Bouvier bar.......................................................Alwan Mimesis Ensemble / Scott Dunn Bridge F BRIDGE9385 (63’ • DDD)

Fairouz’s opera based on Taw iq al-Hakim’s play First, the good news. At a time when some observers might legitimately question the intellectual relevance of new opera, a young cosmopolitan composer confronts the key gramophone.co.uk

GRAMOPHONE JANUARY 2013 III